The present invention pertains to the field of detecting fraud in providing postage for mailpieces, and more particularly to dynamically adapting strategies for detecting such fraud. More generally, the present invention pertains to detecting fraud in connection with any kind of a value-bearing mark or marks on a document (such as a coupon or ticket), not necessarily a postal mark.
The prior art teaches systems for verifying digital postal marks on mailpieces (the marks imprinted by postal machines or postal security devices, called here indicia) to guard against different kinds of attempts at counterfeiting the postal marks, such as duplicating a postal mark, or otherwise using an invalid postal mark, such as for example using a postal mark imprinted by a stolen postal meter. Some of the systems taught by the prior art are manual, requiring the use of handheld scanners. The scanners scan indicia imprinted on mailpieces, including the digital postal marks, and the system then validates the indicia in situ, with no data sent to a central facility where the data could be examined by comparing it with data from other verification systems.
The prior art also teaches automatically reading, at various branch facilities, inspection cards (but not envelopes) that are all identical in size and format, and transferring the data from the inspection cards to a data center for batch analysis. The data center, however, does not influence the testing pattern of the branch facilities based on the batch analysis. Nor does the data center perform any tests beyond cryptographic validation.
What is needed is a system including various branch or local facilities in which each branch facility automatically reads mailpieces of various sizes and formats, and provides the information determined from reading the mailpieces to a central facility where the mailpiece information can be examined in the aggregate, including comparing mailpiece information with historical data, and where the testing and sampling done on the physical mailpiece at the branch facilities is tailored based on the results of the aggregate examinations performed at the central facility. Such a system could vary its behavior to respond to observed changes in the likelihood of different kinds of attempts at passing counterfeit digital postal marks.
Accordingly, the present invention provides, a system and corresponding method for verifying digital postal marks on mailpieces or, more generally, for verifying a mark on any kind of document when the mark represents value and might be counterfeited or used fraudulently, the system including in the specific case of verifying digital postal marks: a plurality of mail processing machine verification modules (MPMVMs) at field locations, each responsive to information obtained from sampled mailpieces, and each further responsive to a control file specifying patterns of sampling and specifying responses to sampling results, each MPMVM performing local verification of the sampled mailpieces according to the control file, each MPMVM for providing the information obtained from the sampled mailpieces and optionally the local verification results; and a data center verification module (DCVM) at a central location, responsive to the information obtained from the sampled mailpieces and also to the local verification results, for analyzing the information obtained from the sampled mailpieces, for periodically providing a control file in replacement of any existing control file, the replacement control file being based on the results of collectively analyzing the information obtained from the mailpieces.
In a further aspect of the invention, the control file includes a suspect list and a configuration file, the suspect list providing a list of postage meter identifiers and, for each postage meter identifier, a corresponding action each MPMVM is to take when processing a mailpiece with an indicium imprinted by said postage meter, the configuration file providing sampling criteria and tests to be performed by each MPMVM. In some applications, the action to be taken is selected from the group consisting of outsorting the mailpiece, advancing the mailpiece, and transferring to the DCVM at least some of the information obtained from the mailpiece. Also in some applications, the configuration file allows for different suites of tests to be performed for different mailpieces.
In a still further aspect of the invention, the control file provided to one of the MPMVMs is tailored to the MPMVM independent of the control file provided to another of the MPMVMs, thereby tailoring the local verification process for each MPMVM.
In another further aspect of the invention, the DCVM includes: a user interface that enables a user to specify via the control files the action to be take by each of the MPMVMs in response to particular sampled data; a mail inspection analysis tool, for analyzing historical mail data either automatically or manually, and for providing reports based on the historical analysis and control files for MPMVMs; a mailpiece data testing module, for collectively testing mailpiece data provided by the MPMVMs; a verification database, for storing mailpiece data and results of the tests performed by the mailpiece data testing module; and a key management system, for managing keys used in performing the cryptographic authentication.
In still another, further aspect of the invention, the MPMVM includes: a controller, responsive to the control file, for providing tests of mailpiece information and a testing sequence according to the control file, and further for providing suspect data indicated by the control file, and further responsive to results of the tests, for providing local verification results based on interpreting the results of the tests using suspect data, for providing a mailpiece processing command based on interpreting the results of the tests, the mailpiece processing command being selected from the group consisting of outsort the mailpiece, advance the mailpiece, and transfer to the DCVM information obtained from the mailpiece, and for providing the mailpiece information; a suspect database, for storing and making accessible suspect data; and a mailpiece test engine, responsive to scanned mailpiece information, for performing mailpiece data tests on the scanned mailpiece information according to the tests of mailpiece information and the testing sequence, for providing the mailpiece data test results including the mailpiece information.